


A Familiar Place

by softbiker



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Other, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-06 02:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softbiker/pseuds/softbiker
Summary: A recovery story.After the diplomatic nightmare known as Civil War calms down, Bucky Barnes comes home to Brooklyn and moves into a brownstone with his best friend Steve Rogers and his reluctant ally Sam Wilson. While his treatments in Wakanda removed the HYDRA programming from his mind, he still has a lot of work to do adjusting to technology, life, and the price of coffee. This series follows some events in the first year of Bucky’s life back stateside, and his small adventures while learning to come home to himself.





	1. The Library

**Author's Note:**

> This is a new series I'm starting - not sure how long it will take to update, but I am excited about it! This is not an "x Reader" story nor am I planning to introduce a romance at any time. This is about Bucky working on himself - I think that's a story worth telling.

There’s a stack of books next to his bed that need to go back to the library. Probably overdue, he thinks, and he hasn’t read a single page. He feels a little guilty for it as he stares at their spines, blinking slow and sleepy.

A knock at the door.

“Hey man, you ready?” Sam pokes his head in, eyebrows up and expectant.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky nods. Finishes lacing his sneakers. Grabs a baseball cap from the doorknob on his way.

Steve is waiting by the front door, rolling his shoulders underneath a (frankly ridiculous) tight blue shirt. The corner of his mouth quirks up when he turns. 

“Mornin’, Buck.”

“Morning.” 

“He’s so damn  _ chipper _ in the mornings,” Sam grins, slapping Bucky’s shoulder. “I feel perky just standing  _ next _ to you, Tin Man.”

Bucky narrows his eyes but says nothing, just watches Steve shake his head like a fond mother. He knew by now that their animosity was mostly a pretense. 

“Ready to go?” the Captain asks, rubbing his hands together, eager and alert despite the bags under his own eyes. Bucky suspects that Steve stays up to see if he needs him, listening for the sounds of his nightmares. He feels a little guilty for that to.

They do a quick warm up outside, some leg swings and lunges and jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. It’s mostly for Sam - Bucky doesn’t know if it’s possible for him or Steve to pull a muscle, but it definitely won’t be on their morning runs. But they do the routine together anyways, the three of them, their breaths puffing in the spring morning air. 

It’s only a couple of miles from their place to Prospect Park, and Bucky and Steve jog at a reasonable pace for Sam’s sake. The conversation is easy between them now - Sam’s date last week with the nurse from the medical wing, Steve’s painting class, Bucky’s therapy sessions. He’s noncommittal on any specifics, but he admits that he thinks they help. And that’s enough - Sam and Steve don’t press him, happy to have him out and moving and living under a sunrise. They take a few laps through the curving paths of the park, nodding to other early morning runners.

About 6 miles in, Bucky yawns.

“Are we gonna  _ actually _ run today, Rogers, or are we letting the flightless bird set the pace?”

Steve cocks an eyebrow and glances to his left at Sam, the only member of their trio with a collection of sweat on his chest and under his arms and little beads of it running down his face. 

“If you think you can keep up, jerk.”

Sam is left behind somewhere around the lake, yelling something about not being afraid to “beat senior citizen ass.” 

Here’s the thing about being a super soldier: it doesn’t feel that crazy most of the time. Bucky knows he’s not straining when he moves an entire rack of weights in the gym, or lifts the back end of a car to help put a jack under it. Tony rented out batting cages for the team one time, and he broke the bat on the first swing, simultaneously popping the stitches on the ball. He plays this little game sometimes where he tries to balance as much weight as he can on his index finger - he’s managed 40 pounds so far on his human hand.

But none of that  _ feels _ special when he does it. Being strong is just a fact about him. It doesn’t make him  _ feel _ superhuman. “Enhanced”.

Running, though.

When he and Steve go for runs, legs stretching forward and pavement barely felt as it flows beneath their feet, the world feels different. Slower. They dart around the joggers and strollers in their path, and Bucky watches them slip behind him in slow motion. They propel their bodies like bullets, their cadence the rapidfire staccato of a machine gun. The trees ebb and grow in cresting waves of green as the soldiers fly past.

_ Flying _ , Bucky thinks. That’s how he feels now. 

Steve is a half beat ahead of him, and his head turns in profile, eyes cutting to find Bucky’s. The corner of his lip twitches.

“Tired yet?”

“Not on your life, punk.”

Steve laughed as he nearly doubled their pace, legs a blur to the eyes of everyone they passed. Bucky followed, gripping the bill of his cap as it threatened to fly up at their speed. He shifted it around backwards, the way he saw Sam wear his sometimes. They turned up the periphery of the park to the northeast, chasing the half-risen sun, now above the buildings and trees around them. Bucky can see the shape of the public library as they pass by, the bronze gate gleaming in the morning light. Some of his old gear, Army stuff and boxing gloves and pictures of him and Steve sitting on the hood of a jeep in France, had been on display with their historical collection when he got here - got  _ home _ \- a few months ago. Sam showed him when they went there; Bucky had leaned close, tried to recognize that kid under the glass.

The supersoldiers put in about 20 miles before they decide to find Sam, now that they’ve finally broken a sweat. Cutting across the grass, they slow their pace to  _ human _ level and look for their friend. Sam is still by the lake, stretching in the grass while laughing with a girl with a long braided ponytail and crazy tight workout clothes. Bucky and Steve share a look as they jog across the lawn, but act polite when the starstruck girl realizes who Sam’s running buddies are. 

After taking a couple selfies with them, the girl jogs off to get ready for work, ponytail swinging behind her. Steve raises an eyebrow in Sam’s direction.

“So, what about that nurse?”

Sam gives him the finger.

* * *

“Look man, all I’m saying is, you could give it a shot,” Sam shrugs, sipping from his to-go cappuccino. “I mean, who knows, there’s probably plenty of ladies out there who are into this whole thing.” He waves the coffee cup to gesture to Bucky’s entire body. 

Bucky frowns. “I have a thing?”

“Sure, you know the brooding, emotionally tortured, dark past kinda thing.” Sam slaps his shoulder. “Lean into it, chicks dig that.”

Bucky nearly chokes on his own drink as he glares at Sam. Steve hides his smile behind his  _ complete monstrosity _ of a drink. A limited edition  _ something _ , the clear cup holds 20 ounces of frozen tie-dye, swirling in red, blue, and yellow, and topped with a mountain of whipped cream. Steve Rogers, ever the little shit, had ordered this drink with a straight face, and now slurps loudly on his straw, while taking breaks to run his finger through the whipped cream. Bucky can see the name “Cap” scrawled in neat sharpie on the side of the cup, with a star drawn next to it. 

“I’m not interested, okay,” Bucky shrugs, dodging a piece of gum on the sidewalk. They had gotten coffee on their walk back to the brownstone, and were discussing a topic that now made Bucky’s skin crawl with discomfort - women.

“Hey, you don’t have to be looking for a  _ wife _ ,” Sam goes on. “But it wouldn’t hurt you to download an app or two. Tinder. Bumble.  _ Something. _ ”

“Aw, lay off him, Sam,” Steve finally speaks up, shaking his head. “Bucky’s not ready. Maybe he’ll feel like it when he’s back to his old lady killer self.”

Bucky cringes at the phrase, at the half-formed memories it conjures. A swaggering Brooklyn kid who spent far too much time combing his hair and winking at pretty girls. He remembers tucking flowers into the lapel of his suit jacket, spending hours shining his shoes, just to spend a night dancing with some pretty girl he’d never see again. He could barely bring himself to talk to strangers anymore, let alone ask one on a  _ date _ . 

“Shut up, Rogers,” he mumbles into his coffee. “That Bucky is dead and buried.”

He doesn’t have to look to know that Steve’s face has that stricken grimace he pulls whenever Bucky says something dark and self-deprecating. He wishes he could say those things without making Steve feel guilty, cause now  _ he _ feels guilty…

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Buck…”

“I know, I know,” Bucky waves him off. “Just quit tryin’ to set me up, both of you. Let an old man rest, will you? Jeez…”

His little joke is enough to put Steve and Sam at ease again, and the conversation turns to Steve’s equally lackluster love life until they reach their place and shuffle up the front steps. Ivy creeps and climbs up the walls for this entire block of buildings, and Bucky wonders if someone planted it there. He likes the lush green of it, especially in the morning.

The 3 of them part ways to hit the showers. In his room again, Bucky’s eye is drawn back to his sad little pile of books. 

Sam is smart. An asshole, yes, but smart. Which is why his book choices tend to include biographies, history, political topics - the stack on the nightstand includes only one novel, a recent bestseller about a retired veteran adopting a dog. Bucky remembers reading, being a reader - he remembers bringing home books from school or trading them at the bookstore or receiving them as gifts from Steve. But not those kinds of books. Nothing boring. Nothing to remind him of the uncertain, hard world he lived in. 

He stares at the spines of Sam’s books for a few more moments, then hurries through the shower, his mind made up.

* * *

“Um, excuse me,” he clears his throat at the front desk. “I need to return these, but, uh. I think - well, they’re overdue.”

Bucky tries a smile at the clerk, a middle-aged woman with a short-cropped haircut, but he can feel how unnatural it looks on his face. The clerk raises an eyebrow at him - he realizes he should have waited a bit before coming here; the tips of his hair are still wet, tiny wet spots coloring the shoulders on his hoodie. 

“Well, let’s scan them and see,” she sighs, pulling his books across the desk. Bucky shifts, his hands curling and uncurling in his front pockets. The old Bucky could probably charm his way out of the fine, but this one?  _ Not a chance in hell, Barnes. _ The librarian grabs the first book and scans the barcode taped to the plastic jacket.

His books are 13 days overdue - costing him a grand total of $5.20. He thinks of Steve’s now expensive coffee habit as he hands over the bill and change. There goes one of his frozen sugar nightmares. 

With his fine taken care of, Bucky wanders his way through the fiction section, his eyes passing over names and titles without catching on anything. Sam’s books weren’t his taste. But he doesn’t even  _ remember _ his own taste. Gloved fingers drift over the shelves, tapping on the wood. 

“Can I help you find something?”

Bucky is embarrassed to be so startled - his head jerks around to see the old man standing there, a warm smile on his face. His shoulders are stooped a little, hands clasped behind his back as he tilts his head up to meet Bucky’s eyes.

“No...well, I don’t know,” Bucky huffs. “I don’t really know what I’m looking for.”

“Oh, I see,” the man nods. The crooked name tag on his striped shirt reads ‘Marvin’. “Would you like some recommendations, then?”

Bucky hesitates, quirking the corner of his mouth down. 

“I guess so,” he nods. “I like...fiction. But I haven’t really read anything in a long time.”

Marvin nods quietly, pursing his lips. His eyes pass over the shelves behind his coke bottle glasses, tapping a finger to his chin.

“Follow me,” he shuffles down the aisle, waving a hand behind him. Bucky obeys, turning the corner onto the next set of author’s names. Marvin’s mouth moves silently as he walks along, searching and searching.

“Aha! Here we go.” He reaches up to a shelf at eye level, taking a book and showing Bucky the front cover. “This has been a classic since it was published, really. And the author wrote a trilogy that followed. It’s fantasy, maybe that’s your thing?”

“I...I’m trying new things,” Bucky decides, clearing his throat as he takes the book, admiring the pastoral scene on the cover. “Um, you said he wrote other books?”

Marvin smiles and turns back to the shelf, reaching for the adjacent books.

* * *

Bucky’s backpack makes a ‘thunk’ sound as he drops it next to his bed, closing the door with his foot. He had loaned all four books that Marvin suggested, eager as he read their inside covers. Maybe he and Steve and Sam could watch the movie adaptations sometime, on one of their pizza nights. He had always opted out of choosing a movie, so overwhelmed by the options and apathetic to Sam’s DVD library. But maybe he would suggest it to Steve next time. Steve would like that. 

He toes off his sneakers, shuffling back and messing up the comforter on his perfectly made bed. When he first moved in, he thought the room was furnished with way too many pillows - who needs more than one pillow? Now he fluffs the three behind his back and props himself up against the headboard, leaning over to slip the first book out of his backpack. He settles back on his bed, folds back the cover to the first chapter.

_ “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” _

  
  



	2. The Studio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not 100% satisfied with this, but here's the next part :) As always, let me know what you think!

“Okay, I’m 100% sure it’s  _ not _ supposed to look like that.”

“Shut  _ up _ , bird brain.”

“Will you two  _ stop it _ I can’t hear the instructor.”

Three soldiers exchange glares behind their easels, brushes poised over canvas. Their stools are set in the back of the class, clustered close together so they can peek over each others shoulders. Other easels are arranged in semi-circle rows towards the front of the classroom, with the instructor at the epicenter, walking back and forth and making comments to the students. To her credit, she tries to ignore the fussing commentary from the back of the room, only sparing them a glance every once in a while. 

An oil painting class. Painting was never Steve’s strong suit - he prefers pencils and charcoal, quick messy sketches under his flurried fingers, captured on the spur of the moment. Bucky faintly remembers a smaller, softer Steve, the graphite on his hands, the smudges that covered his nose. Pencil fixed behind his ear, where Bucky would have placed a cigarette. But when they came here, settled into their place in Bed-Stuy, Steve decided to try out something new. And today he invited Sam and Bucky to join him. 

Steve takes easily to new mediums, whatever his protests about not being a “natural” painter. Sam has no idea what he’s doing, but Bucky knows that has never stopped him from having a good time. 

Bucky, though. 

Bucky feels nervous each time he dips his brush, blends his paints. He feels somehow wasteful, putting his own brush to the canvas. Hand him a knife, a gun, hell - even one of Stark’s high-tech weapons, and he’s steady. A deadshot. But a paintbrush? He doubts every stroke and line. Without a talent like Steve’s, he thinks, this canvas would be better off with someone else. 

But Steve is having a good time and he hates to ruin that, so Bucky quietly frowns at his canvas, tongue poking between his lips. Today’s class is a still life, their reference a pale blue vase of flowers on a table in the center of the room. Steve has rendered it beautifully, even captured the soft lighting from the windows on the west wall of the room. Sam’s attempt is passable, for someone with no training at all in studio art. 

It isn’t that Bucky doesn’t have  _ some _ skill, or proficiency, or artistic eye. He remembers sitting through a couple of figure drawing classes with Steve - he managed to learn a thing or two, when he wasn’t winking at the models. And his work isn’t  _ bad _ , he knows that, but -

Well. He doesn’t think it’s worth making. 

* * *

He keeps coming to the class for a few weeks, when Steve’s schedule is free from missions and meetings, of course. They sit near the back of the room and Bucky makes good attempts but he’s not really sure if he’s making  _ art _ . 

“You know, I’m really not sure if oils are your medium.”

The class is over, and the instructor stands at Bucky’s elbow, looking at the row of paintings laid along the shelf to dry. Bucky had been comparing his work to his classmates, thinking pretty much the same thing. 

“Not that you don’t have a hand for painting,” the instructor continues, hands slipping into the pockets of her overalls. “But I think you’re letting it intimidate you - you put too much pressure on yourself and then you hesitate. I’ve noticed.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Bucky shrugs. “I guess.” The instructor laughed a little, adjusting the glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“See? You hesitated to tell me that you hesitate.” She was shaking her head with a not unkind smile.

“Jeez - you have a side gig as a therapist?”

“Nope - just good at seeing people.” 

Bucky shifted his feet, not used to the feeling of being closely observed - it definitely wasn’t something he liked. Seeming to sense this, the instructor took a step back, shrugging her shoulders and looking away from him. 

“Look, you should keep coming,” she offered. “You have some talent, that’s for sure. But you can try other things. Doesn’t have to be oil paint and flowers. What do you want to make?”

Steve is waiting outside the classroom, reading the bulletin board in the hallway. Fluorescent-colored flyers litter the board, interspersed with lost pet ads, ride shares, roommate offers, and piano lessons. Steve fingers one, tears off the number for an Asian cooking class, and tucks the slip of paper in his jacket pocket. He turns when he hears Bucky’s footsteps, that classic smile curling up his mouth.

“You, ready?” 

“Yep.”

They take the subway back, dutifully ignoring the raised eyebrows and cell phones that turn their way. It’s New York - sooner or later people get over it. Bucky’s metal hand is wrapped loosely around a pole that Steve leans against, supersoldier strength and balance making him barely shift as the train speeds and slows. 

“Sam is supposed to get back from that recon op this afternoon,” Steve says, his voice low enough keep their conversation private. “He’ll probably want takeout for dinner.”

Bucky nods. “He always does, after a mission. Milks it for all he’s worth, so we have to get his favorite - I bet he’ll want fried rice from that Thai place, and we better make sure there’s cold beer in the fridge.”

Steve just smiles, glances down at his sneakers, shifts his feet a little. He’ll never say a word, a single  _ goddamn _ word, about how much Bucky and Sam pay attention to each other. About Bucky remembering Sam’s takeout order from every single one of their usual places; about Sam bringing home new exotic fruits from the health food market so Bucky could try things that weren’t available back in the day. He will never breathe a single word about how Bucky took Sam’s laundry and scrubbed the blood out after that mission in Denver went bad, or Sam driving back and forth to Bucky’s therapy appointments, in spite of the distance. 

_ Loose lips, Rogers. _ Nope. His are sealed. 

* * *

“If I didn’t know any better, I would honest to God think that Stark didn’t respect me,” Sam shakes his head, shovelling rounded lumps of rice into his mouth with his chopsticks. His cheeks are comically full, but he continues to talk. “I mean, the guy really asked if I needed  _ air support.  _ Me? Baby, I  _ am _ air support.”

Steve makes a noise of assent around a mouthful of noodles that he continues to slurp into his mouth. Bucky says nothing, but smiles into his egg roll. The coffee table in front of them is littered with takeout boxes, some still full, some already emptied. Steve and Bucky have already finished 2 beers each - Sam is drinking at a slower pace so he can continue to talk. 

“I fucking  _ invented _ air support. Pssh.” Sam rolls his eyes, settling back against the cushions of the couch and pulling his standard blanket over his lap. 

The TV is set to a sports channel, a college basketball game they’re not too invested in carrying on in the background. Sam talks and talks, the other two barely getting a word in, but that’s alright - he always needs this, after a mission. Sam has to get it all out, decompress, debrief, de- _ everything _ in that post-victory rush of adrenaline he’s still high on when he comes home. They let him - they sit around in their sweatpants and half-watch a ballgame and shoot the shit over beers and Thai, and let Sam come back to himself.

“So,” Sam sighs, sipping his beer. “What’d you old farts get up to while I was gone, huh?”

“Mm, not much.” Steve’s reply is muffled as he continues to inhale his noodles. “Art class. Running.”

“Getting some goddamn peace and quiet,” Bucky pipes up, crumpling up the now empty egg roll bag and reaching for a full styrofoam container of steaming fried rice. 

“Ha ha.” Sam doesn’t even look up from his food. “Y’all know it’s boring as hell around here without me. And who else is gonna help you two to meet some  _ females _ ? Hm? You think people are lining up to wingman for your hundred-year-old asses? No way!”

“What would we do without you, Sam?” Steve asks, that ironic twist to his mouth that Bucky has known all his life. 

“You’d be star-spangled roadkill, I can tell you that much.”

They laugh and settle, eyes passing over the ballgame as one of the teams lines up for a free throw. It’s just the three of them in their little place, but it feels full. It’s enough. It’s home.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Bucky takes the painting instructor’s advice. 

He rolls out huge canvases on the floor and slings paint in random patterns, layers of splatter until he feels like his eyes have crossed. The freedom, the lack of pressure, the  _ fun _ of throwing paint around like a child - all of that he likes, but still. 

“Still not sure if it’s my thing,” he tells Steve, as they look at his finished piece propped up against the wall. Steve nods, lips pursed.

“Well, we could hang it up at the compound. Tony keeps talking about needing more art around that place.”

Bucky just rolls his eyes.

“I’m not five, Steve. You don’t have to hang my scribbles on the fridge.”

He goes back to the studio and slings pots - pots and vases and key bowls and jewelry dishes and mugs. They’re passable, usable, functional - these are the words he thinks of when he glazes them in soft blue and yellow shades. Bucky likes the feel of it under his fingers, the wet firmness of the clay that yields to his hands. He’s gotten little bits of dried clay between the metal plates of his arm, but he doesn’t mind - he’s learned they’re easy enough to dislodge with a toothbrush. He gives away or takes home all of his little projects, happy to see them used.

Sam gifts him with a polaroid camera he found going through some of his parents things, and Bucky fiddles with it until he’s quite good at taking pictures. Whenever they go out he has his camera slung around his neck, an extra packet of film and a flashbar in his backpack. He has dozens of photos now - photos of Steve sipping coffee and flipping off the camera. Photos of Sam and Rhodey laughing, in full gear, when the team had drinks at the compound last month. A few photos of Natasha and Wanda, who come over to the brownstone sometimes - Natasha’s legs are folded over the end of the couch, while Wanda gets a piggyback ride from Steve. He tacks the pictures up, covering nearly half of the wall of his bedroom, not caring about the holes he leaves in the drywall. 

It’s Wanda who introduces him to knitting, one weekend when both Steve and Sam get called out on a potential terror situation in London. There’s a rule - unspoken, unwritten - among Steve’s friends that someone comes to check on Bucky whenever they have to leave him alone. He doesn’t protest, knowing that they do it out of kindness and loyalty to Steve; he knows all about being loyal to Steve. 

Wanda sits cross-legged on the couch, her fingers working the knitting needles at a hypnotic pace. He likes Wanda; she’s quiet and sensitive, all soft smiles and knowing eyes. A room always feels calmer with her in it. She had used his hands earlier to loop the yarn, and now he watches her over the top of his book, which he has all but abandoned.

When he asks her about the knitting, if she can show him, she looks up. Soft smiles and knowing eyes.

Bucky has always been good with his hands, so no one is surprised that he’s good at knitting. Eventually, they all have something he’s made: a beanie for Sam, a scarf for Steve, fingerless gloves for Wanda, and blankets galore for their too-cold brownstone. 

* * *

It fills up his time, somehow.

Bucky makes drawings, and paintings, and little origami birds out of grocery receipts. He makes bowls he can give to his friends and pictures that he can keep and blankets that he can share. He scours google and breaks a few (literal) eggs and makes banana bread that fills the brownstone with a smell that he could float on. He makes pancakes and poems and -

Bucky  _ makes. _

On the subway with Steve - a figure drawing class tonight - Bucky is staring at his hands. Ungloved metal and soft scarred flesh. His hands are tools, they’re instruments. They can be molds or looms or brushes or chisels.

“Weapons” doesn’t even enter his mind at all. 

  
  



End file.
